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| North Carolina Folklore Society | |
|---|---|
| Name | North Carolina Folklore Society |
| Formation | 1913 |
| Headquarters | Raleigh, North Carolina |
| Type | Scholarly society |
| Region served | North Carolina |
North Carolina Folklore Society The North Carolina Folklore Society is a scholarly organization dedicated to the collection, preservation, and interpretation of traditional culture in North Carolina. Founded in the early 20th century, the Society has connected folklorists, historians, librarians, and community practitioners across the state and beyond. Its activities have intersected with institutions such as Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Smithsonian Institution, and agencies like the Library of Congress.
The Society was established during a period of regional cultural revival that included figures associated with Southern Historical Association, American Folklore Society, and state agencies such as the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Early correspondence and meetings involved scholars tied to Bryn Mawr College, Columbia University, Harvard University, and community leaders from cities like Raleigh, North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The organization’s archives document collaborations with folklorists linked to Zora Neale Hurston, folklore collectors connected to Francis James Child, and collectors influenced by methodologies propagated at Smith College and Vassar College. Throughout the 20th century, the Society engaged with contemporary movements associated with New Deal, the Works Progress Administration, and cultural programs at the New York Public Library.
The Society’s mission centers on documenting songs, narratives, material culture, and performance traditions found in locales such as Appalachian Mountains, Outer Banks, and the Piedmont region. It sponsors fieldwork training drawing on practices from American Folklore Society, offers partnerships with museums like the North Carolina Museum of History, and organizes annual meetings that have convened at campuses including Queens University of Charlotte and Elon University. Programming has featured workshops on oral history techniques associated with Folklife Center standards, panel sessions with representatives from National Endowment for the Humanities and practitioners from communities tied to Cherokee Nation (Cherokee Indian Reservation), Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, and African American cultural organizations in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Society issues a regular journal and occasional monographs that have been cited alongside publications from University of North Carolina Press, Duke University Press, and the Journal of American Folklore. Contributors have published work intersecting with collections at Library of Congress Folkways, referencing songbooks akin to those collected by John Lomax, and analyses compared with compilations from Alan Lomax. The Society’s editorial boards have included scholars affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis, Indiana University Bloomington, and archival curators from Smithsonian Folkways.
Membership has drawn academics from departments at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Appalachian State University, and East Carolina University, alongside independent researchers, public librarians from Forsyth County Public Library, and cultural workers from institutions such as Historic Hope Plantation and Biltmore Estate. Governance mirrors structures used by American Folklore Society with elected officers, regional representatives covering districts including Asheville, North Carolina and Fayetteville, North Carolina, and committees for awards and programming often coordinated with funders like National Endowment for the Arts.
Key figures associated with the Society include folklorists and scholars who have published or presented work alongside well-known names such as Zora Neale Hurston, Alan Lomax, John A. Lomax, Max Hunter, and archivists connected to the Library of Congress. Other contributors have included academics affiliated with Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and community leaders from Cherokee, North Carolina and Pembroke, North Carolina. Scholars linked to the Society have participated in conferences with participants from Colby College, Vanderbilt University, and cultural initiatives supported by Rockefeller Foundation grants.
The Society’s collections comprise field recordings, transcriptions, photographs, and material-culture inventories housed in repositories at Southern Folklife Collection, Southern Historical Collection, and the archives of North Carolina State University. Holdings include correspondence and fieldnotes comparable to archives at Wisconsin Historical Society and digitized audio that complements resources in the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. Partnerships have enabled deposit of materials in regional museums such as the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and local historical societies in Wilkes County, North Carolina and Carteret County, North Carolina.
Over more than a century, the Society has influenced scholarship and public understanding of traditions from Appalachia to the Atlantic Coast (United States), shaping curricula at University of North Carolina system campuses and informing exhibits at the North Carolina Museum of History and touring programs with entities like Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. Its legacy appears in oral-history projects modeled after practices at the Federal Writers' Project and in community archives developed in partnership with tribal organizations such as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and cultural initiatives in Charlotte, North Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Category:Organizations based in North Carolina Category:Folklore societies